Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

Because I love linux and Arch is friendly distribution.But ! yes, always there are a BUT, in may particular case, I have not satisfy with the opensource driver nvidia. The movies have saw are sometime like split screen in pictures with some motion. Not is a quiestion with Arch, I have the same problem with another distro. And know you what? the other SO of wind$$$, run ok, damm.

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

umm well alot of people might hate me for this but i sometimes use arch linux because i like to customize my OS and make my own customizations like that. my friends think i'm stupid though because they say stuff like compatibility > customization or something like that and ya i agree. arch linux is well ok in compatibility with me and it's simple to where i can install any wm or de, and make a whole cool customization look to it

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

Too lazy to reinstall if a new version came out and I somehow hated not to know what the hell was happening when I installed something. I was thinking in geento but the compiling time keep me away of it

Stayed because:-Easy to use and hard to break, probably because I learned a bunch of stuff reading the wiki during the install (before I just needed a few weeks to have a crippled system)-Dat wiki

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

kolos wrote:

Too lazy to reinstall if a new version came out and I somehow hated not to know what the hell was happening when I installed something. I was thinking in geento but the compiling time keep me away of it

Stayed because:-Easy to use and hard to break, probably because I learned a bunch of stuff reading the wiki during the install (before I just needed a few weeks to have a crippled system)-Dat wiki

all these, plus the customization options, its great speed, and the fact that in order to set it up just as i want i learned quite a lot useful things.

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

Well, I got myself an MSI Wind nettop from 2009 that I use as my personal seedbox and having Arch Linux on it just seemed to make sense. All it needs to run most of the time besides basic operating system software is rtorrent. Didn't feel like I needed a distro that provides a bunch of extra apps just for that.

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

I can do whatever I want and have control over everything to a level only gentoo and LFS can match (and maybe FreeBSD, Crux and the likes). I can customize it to match my computer needs for any set of hardware (older, lighter, heavy, laptop) without having to look for a special version of the same distro (Hi ubuntu lovers).

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

rp181 wrote:

"New Linux users shouldn't try and install Arch""Challenge Accepted!"

+1

I tried fedora for a week before moving to Ubuntu because I couldn't figure out how to setup NFS.I used that for 3 months when OSFirstTimer on YouTube did a train-wreck job showcasing Arch and I was like "I have to see this".Immediately after booting the live media I was knew "This will be my permanent Distro".

I love it for all the previously listed (by other posters) reasons + systemd

Also I was addicted to waiting for the new release \ in windows 7 to 8 but no/\ an then fedora 19 to 20/\then ubuntu I started using the daily builds of 14.04/Im cured of Ubuntuism

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

I try for the first time Arch in 2013-05-31 (almost a year)... and I don't want to change.. "I just want to: keep on rolling"

This is the best distro that I have the luck to use after reading many articles talking about Arch, and I always found some lines saying "It breaks sometimes. Is the bleeding-CUTTING edge. Beware there will be dragons"... naaaah I don't know but at the first try I ended with a fast-stable-awesome OS, I do my 1st install in a clunky-old hard drive and never breaks, then some months later I clone it in a new HD... So, I don't want to change anymore (I can even play games here WOW!).

Yes there are little things that I don't know how to fix, that Ubuntu do fine at 1st try (my old LCD TV is stuck on 1024x768 in Arch, but in Ubuntu I can use a better resolution)... I can't spent more time trying to fix/find a solution, but well VLC can fix the aspect ratio and allows me to see movies correctly.

Arch is an Oasis for the weary travellers, I only miss some old games that I play on Winbugs, but I'm more productive here in Arch than there in Winbugs.

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

Why did I choose Arch?

Unless you count the times I tried Linux and gave up in the early 2000s (Dependency hell drove me away.), I started with Ubuntu about 6 years ago. Then they came out with unity...YUCK!!! So, it was time for Mint but, I got tired of doing reinstalls every 6 months to stay current. So, I landed briefly in Manjaro which I really liked. That got me curious about Arch. Was I up to the task of installing it? So I tried installing it on an external USB harddrive. To my surprise, I got it to work without too much trouble and I was so pleased with the results, I moved into it and haven't looked back.

If you use a distribution like Ubuntu or Mint, you really have a system like Windows where someone else has made a lot of decisions for you. They might be good decisions especially for someone that doesn't have any idea what can be done but, once you know more, you'll probably find it's more satisfying to build it the way you want it. Arch lets you do that.

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

After the launch of Windows 8, I wanted Windows out of my life for good. I had been dual booting Windows 7 snd openSuse for a long time with the occasional distro-hop. openSuse had been a good step up from the *buntus, but Yast was a bit of a hog and I had tried most other major distros, to varying degrees of satisfaction.

So I got an iMac for software not available on Linux (photoshop, zbrush, etc, things that justified Windows, and I can much more readily deal with OSX than Windows) and started to research other distros, and Arch was a top contender due to what I had heard about its speed and grace. I gave it a shot, and I probably failed around 10 consecutive times with the installer. I really had never attempted an install quite like it. So I gave up on arch directly, and tested out some derivatives/arch-based/arch-like distros. Manjaro, a breeze to install, but the UI is over cooked. Chakra, the installer breaks a lot, and while the final UI is prettier than Manjaro, it too is overcooked, and its repos leave much desired when compared to Arch. Then Bridge, etc etc... I started getting a taste for Arch through failing with it, and its related distros.

I finally found a couple of nice walkthroughs of the Arch installation process, and I finally succeeded.Then I formatted everything and tried again, and again. I'm basically now at the point that I can do 85% of the installation from my head, and refer to help files or walkthroughs online for the parts that escape me, or I don't want to chance it with.At the end of the day the Arch beginners' installation guide is really all one needs to get going... though at first it doesn't seem that way. That's what made me look for step-by-step guides. I now only refer to the Arch Wiki.

I know *so much more* about Linux now than I ever did before, and it's empowering. Arch made me learn a lot, and I'm better off for it. I now appreciate and prefer 'user centric' over 'user friendly'. Going to work on Windows now totally sucks, CentOs at my previous job was some consolation, but not much.

Arch is the first distro, for me, that once tamed, leaves me wanting for nothing, and knowing how to do anything I need or want (or at least knowing how to figure it out).

I now run it on my main workstation, my file server, and my laptop. I could never have setup a 20TB ZFS volume on my file server, or shared it correctly via nfs before, or on and on and on. I really have been able to do everything the way *I* want it, and nothing else.All other distros I had to dig through forums and sub forums of half cooked walkthroughs and explanations... everything I needed, for Arch was right there, cleanly documented and available.

I choose Arch because it taught me (and still is teaching me) everything I need to know to make my computers do exactly what I want them to do, and nothing I don't. It's the first distro for me that totally feels right.

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

mills.sean wrote:

I finally found a couple of nice walkthroughs of the Arch installation process, and I finally succeeded.Then I formatted everything and tried again, and again. I'm basically now at the point that I can do 85% of the installation from my head, and refer to help files or walkthroughs online for the parts that escape me, or I don't want to chance it with.At the end of the day the Arch beginners' installation guide is really all one needs to get going... though at first it doesn't seem that way. That's what made me look for step-by-step guides. I now only refer to the Arch Wiki.

Whew! I thought you were being lead astray for a second. The beginners guide really is what you should be using, as things change frequently and those walk-throughs and guides get outdated rather quickly.

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

WonderWoofy wrote:

Whew! I thought you were being lead astray for a second. The beginners guide really is what you should be using, as things change frequently and those walk-throughs and guides get outdated rather quickly.

While I agree now, the 'yes, yes, next, yes' user, can actually be caught off guard by the comprehensiveness of the Arch Beginners' Guide. If you read it linearly, you'll think that they've gone off the reservation... because you weren't reading it thoroughly because you're a 'yes yes, next, yes' guy.

So, a couple walkthroughs got me familiar, and reading posts like yours made me say 'why the ef don't I get it', which made me circle back around and do an install with only the sanctioned guide, and then the lights in my head started going on.

So one who is unfamiliar with Arch, and or text based installers, has to learn to think a bit differently before he realizes how comprehensive it actually is.

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

p1010 wrote:

Yes there are little things that I don't know how to fix, that Ubuntu do fine at 1st try (my old LCD TV is stuck on 1024x768 in Arch, but in Ubuntu I can use a better resolution)... I can't spent more time trying to fix/find a solution, but well VLC can fix the aspect ratio and allows me to see movies correctly.

Sounds like you're missing a video driver. Do you have ATI or Nvidia graphics? I suggest a look on the wiki about setting it up, it's probably only a quick download to solve it.

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

blueprint wrote:

quayasil wrote:

I switched from Gentoo to Arch a few years ago because:- it was really KISS,- it was a FreeBSD-like organized Linux distro too but it found it more consistent, simpler and more lightweight. The syntax of /etc/rc.conf was really ingenious!,- IMHO not using any USE flags etc resulted in simpler bug tracking and stabilization.

Nowadays I'm thinking of returning to Gentoo or searching for a new distro based on good old Arch. The main problems with further using Arch are:- systemd which I find a `let's make Linux like Windows but even better' idea,- ignoring Unix *standards* in favor of `Linuxism' which is a consequence of the above,- unsatisfactory package testing before making them available or trying to be too much up-to-date cutting edge. The result are numerous serious regressions and even kernel crashes after system upgrade.

I switched from Arch to FreeBSD about 5 years ago, never looked back. I am still running my first install of FreeBSD, which I keep up to date, no re-installs etc. How many Arch users are still running their very first Arch install? Given that it is a rolling distro. The difference with FreeBSD is, while the upgrade may require more steps, I use the same instructions every time, no deviations, no one off tweaks for special circumstances etc. The upgrade works first time, every time.

It's rare to meet people that are truly happy with their Linux distro of choice. They go through this honeymoon period where they will describe it as the best thing since sliced bread. Then they will discover and live with its flaws, then they get frustrated with it's flaws and distro hop. Rinse and repeat this process. I have had discussions with even the staunchest of distro followers, and like clock work a few years later their tune is different.

I still keep my first install which is slightly over four years old. At some points I dd'd from a 320GB to a 1TB disk, and extended the partition, but that's not a reinstall. A few weeks ago, I put in a new disk, and installed gumiboot instead of grub, but copied over all of "/", so it's still the same install. The change was only to move BIOS -> MBR.

Honestly, I can't really complain about Arch. While I strongly prefer OpenBSD on servers (and honestly, it's vastly superior), I wouldn't think of chaning Arch - even though I sometimes look at other stuff on VMs or spare laptop, I keep sticking with Arch due to all reasons people keep on mentioning.

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

hobarrera wrote:

Honestly, I can't really complain about Arch. While I strongly prefer OpenBSD on servers (and honestly, it's vastly superior), I wouldn't think of chaning Arch - even though I sometimes look at other stuff on VMs or spare laptop, I keep sticking with Arch due to all reasons people keep on mentioning.

I've considered *BSDs several times, and they have several things going for them, but compared to Arch, Arch is giving *BSDs a run for their money. *BSDs heavily modify the applications, and it works well with memory footprint, but *BSDs are starting to seem lackluster. I was expecting more out of *BSDs, but Arch has spoiled me.

I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...Look ma, no mouse.

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

I wanted to leanr more of linux. I used Slackware and Ubuntu. In fact i like Slackware but lack of something as pacman is something that i can't leave behind. I heard about pacman, wanted to try it. Wanted to learn something new...and...once for all...i wanted to forget about problems that i had with ubuntu (nvidia), their package management and the fear that comes with aptitude and apt-get when i wanted to remove something. I faced some serious and funny thing with removine software - i was leaved with...only half od the system because removing some apps also removed half of the Ubuntu (till this day i don't know why removing libre office also removed default window menager for ubuntu, lightdm and few thing more...). Also, under ubuntu i could not work with nvidia because either from nvidia site or from xorg system detected that have 4 LCD screen and divided my resoluton for a few smaller, what was not true, i had only one at that time...it happened only on Unity. I though that either i learn something new, maybe better, or go back to Slackware. I stay with Arch.

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

The Arch Build System, systemd, the best wiki available, readily available help on the forum by people who actually know what they're doing, general simplicity, freedom, the Arch Build Repository, and so on and so forth..

It is true that Arch isn't for everyone, but it's not because it's too complicated or any such thing, but because it demands a certain amount of attention from the user. Much like a car really. You can buy one of those new fancy looking ones that you have no choice but to send to the shop if it breaks, or you can get an older one which, though it may require more work, let you do it your self. Personally I prefer the ladder, but of course many feel differently.

That is not to say that Arch Linux haven't got flaws, but that's true about anything, more or less. The difference being that whatever issues you may experience, they are solvable. That is far from always the case with other Linux distributions.

Truth be told, when the Debian team has implemented systemd, it will be very tempting to jump ship, as I find that more often than not my machines require more of my attention than I find viable, but I think I will never really be able to live without the ABS and AUR, and of course the invaluable help of the community.